Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
1 Corinthians 9:16b
I feel as if nothing else needs to be said after reading the title and Paul’s words to the Corinthians, but seeing as how I like to talk, I’ll say a few things.
There are at least two ways that we can define extroversion. In one sense, it means to be outgoing, to be the life of the party. In the Meyer’s-Brigg’s sense, it seems to mean that a person draws his/her energy from being around people verses the introvert who is recharged by isolating him/herself from people.
To be honest, it is hard for me to relate to either of those definitions. As a general rule, I don’t recharge by spending time with people, especially bigger groups. And I certainly don’t very often find myself to be the life of the party (although sometimes I can be a real cut up!). So as a classified introvert, maybe I should have just left it at the opening statement to avoid talking of things that I don’t know much about!
However, there is a common phrase that I’ve heard people say and have heard my own heart say even if I have never spoken it out loud. It’s a phrase that shirks responsibility and ignores a clear command of God. “I’m just not outgoing enough to share my faith.” Couldn’t we rewrite that as, “God makes some people to be extroverts and the entirety of evangelism rests on their shoulders”?
Can’t I, the introvert who worries what people will think of him or can’t come up with relevant questions to ask in order to steer a conversation towards Christ, just be content letting other people share their faith? No. That’s God’s answer. Jesus didn’t divide His disciples into personality groups before giving the Great Commission. He simply said, “Go and make disciples.” Now, I can imagine Peter getting energized by those words, but I can just as easily imagine one of the other disciples responding with a groan like I tend to.
It’s easy for us to compare ourselves to others who have more evangelistic abilities. I certainly know people who are great at sharing Christ. And I certainly don’t put myself into that category…and that makes me sad. Not sad in the sense that God didn’t make me like them, but rather sad in the sense that I should be like them.
This is where the Gospel transforms lives and where I see it transforming my life more and more towards extroversion. I probably won’t ever draw my energy from being around people or by being the life of the party. I will probably continue to prefer quiet surroundings and intimate gatherings of a few close friends. But I refuse to remain bound by those things when it comes to sharing Christ! No matter how hard it may be (and believe me, it is a hard, uphill battle), I cannot allow the tendency of my personality to keep others from hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If Jesus really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him, then pawning off my lack of evangelistic efforts makes me a chump, not an introvert. If people are on a road that leads to eternal punishment as Jesus has made very clear that they are, then for me to not share the Good News of Jesus Christ makes me a jerk, not an introvert. And Jesus will hold me accountable for how I responded to the Great Commission in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples!
You see, telling God that I had an introverted personality is not going to cut it when I stand before the One who showed me indescribable grace in sending His Son to die in my place. How did God deal with the servant who buried the talent that he was given? God took the talent and cast the servant into outer darkness!
Now, I’m not saying that salvation depends on sharing our faith, but even the most introverted chess club president is going to talk your ear off about chess for a few hours if he’s given the chance! I say this with reservation, but I say it just the same. If you are an introvert who isn’t sharing his/her faith, then you probably aren’t that passionate about Jesus. It’s either because you aren’t spending time pursuing Christ through the Word of God and pressing in to a local church or because you’ve become lazy in seeking out opportunities to share Christ.
Maybe I’m just being harsh, but it is hard for me to fathom a scenario in which one can know the only essential message in all of human history and hide behind a smoke screen of introversion to keep from sharing that Good News of Christ. For the sake of souls and the glory of Jesus Christ, we have to put to death everything that keeps us from boldly heralding the Gospel.
So what does that look like? For starters, it involves loving Jesus more than we fear the opinions of men. If I really count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, I won’t hesitate to associate with the rejection that Christ endured when He called the whole world to repentance. I will gladly go outside of the city gates and bear the reproach that He endured for me.
In addition, we need to be willing to mess up and stumble over our words and sound foolish. I think what helps me in this area is realizing that about 99 out of 100 times that I share the Gospel, the response is not going to be the guy falling flat on his face in repentance. Most of the time, no matter how clear I am in the “Gospel presentation,” the spiritually dead person will respond like all dead people do…by staying dead. God needs to make the person alive to spiritual things. My craftiness or skills of persuasion have nothing to do with it! Thankfully, God does not require us to sell anything or convince anyone of anything. He just tells us to faithfully share His message of salvation.
As a whole, people are pretty willing to listen to someone talk about something that he/she is passionate about even if it is the most boring topic on the planet to them. Maybe it’s because it is the nice thing to do. Maybe it is because they know that they’ve got some boring things that they would love to talk about too. The point is that God has been using imperfect, broken, stuttering people for a few millennia and He will continue to do so, so we shouldn’t be overly concerned with trying to come across like a seminary professor. (In fact, most of the time it is probably better that we don’t!)
We need to be seeking out these opportunities (for practice?). It is not enough to sit on a street corner and hope that someone will come up to us and ask us who Jesus was. For some of us, it is as easy as calling our parents or clocking in at work. For others like many of my friends with Christian families going to Christian universities, it takes more intentionality. Whatever the case, if we aren’t looking for and praying for opportunities to share our faith, we probably won’t be sowing a lot of seed! And that’s a shame considering God has promised that His Word will not return to Him void but will accomplish all that He has intended it to.
Lastly, we have to have predetermined to continue loving the person regardless of how he or she responds to our efforts. Are we simply trying to get another check in the box or are we trying to love others with the selfless love of Jesus Christ? Is it frustrating when people laugh at the Gospel? Of course! Is it aggravating when they blink a few times and then start talking about how awesome Aaron Rodgers is? That’s a trick question because ARodg is awesome and they’re trying to distract me! Do I want to pull my hair out when their response is apathy? Absolutely! Especially since I just served up the Gospel like a filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes on a silver platter! (Or at least that’s how my pride tells me it came across.)
No matter how passionate we might be, no matter how intelligent our argument sounds, what is going to pay more dividends in the long run than anything is how we treat them after sharing Christ and how we live out what we claim to believe. Does our love for Christ compel us to love them regardless of how hopeless it seems that they will ever respond to the Gospel call? People will always sniff out phonies. We need to love people because Christ loved us, no matter how they respond. And we need to pray like crazy that God will grant them repentance, which none of us deserves. Salvation is of the Lord.
I close by letting the Word of God speak with the holy power that only it has.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Romans 1:16-17
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